[Photo h/t

Think Progress]

Well, we've known for some time that Patrick Fitzgerald doesn't mess around. Just ask Rod Blagejovich and Scooter Libby. Yesterday Hal Turner, Sean Hannity's erswhile friend, got the same lesson:

CHICAGO—Hal Turner, an intermittent internet radio talk show host and blogger, was arrested today by FBI agents at his home in North Bergen, N.J., on a federal complaint filed in Chicago alleging that he made internet postings threatening to assault and murder three federal appeals court judges in Chicago in retaliation for their recent ruling upholding handgun bans in Chicago and a suburb.

Internet postings on June 2 and 3 proclaimed “outrage” over the June 2, 2009, handgun decision by Chief Judge Frank Easterbrook and Judges Richard Posner and William Bauer, of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, further stating, among other things: “Let me be the first to say this plainly: These Judges deserve to be killed.” The postings included photographs, phone numbers, work address and room numbers of these judges, along with a photo of the building in which they work and a map of its location.

Turner, 47, of North Bergen, N.J., was arrested this morning after FBI agents went to his residence to execute a search warrant. He was charged with threatening to assault and murder three federal judges with intent to retaliate against them for performing official duties in a criminal complaint filed today in U.S. District Court in Chicago. He is scheduled to have an initial court appearance at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow (Thursday) before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael A. Shipp in U.S. District Court in Newark.

“We take threats to federal judges very seriously. Period,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, who announced the charges with Robert D. Grant, Special Agent in Charge of the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Amanda Terkel at Think Progress has more details.

Turner was already facing charges in Connecticut for similar threats issued to state officials there.

There is at least a touch of irony here: Turner's previous threats involving Judge Lefkow were referenced in these posts. Turner wrote:

“Apparently, the 7th U.S. Circuit court didn’t get the hint after those killings. It appears another lesson is needed.”

Some of us wondered if Turner hadn't crossed the line into issuing real threats back in 2005. Now it appears the FBI has decided he has.

This is welcome news, but it's probably long overdue.

Now if only the FBI would take threats against abortion-clinic doctors every bit as seriously.

News this morning that U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has indicted Democratic Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich predictably brought cheers from the conservative chattering classes. Blagojevich's arrest over the "pay for play" Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama and myriad other jaw-dropping corruption schemes Fitzgerald simply deemed "staggering" led the right-wing Hot Air blog among others to proclaim "Fitzmas arrives early this year." Of course, when the crime was obstruction and perjury over the outing covert CIA operative Valerie Plame as political payback by the Bush administration, the mouthpieces of the right slandered the Republican Fitzgerald as "politically motivated", "disgusting", "a lunatic" - and worse.

A walk down memory lane provides a rich history of the vitriol directed at Fitzgerald by conservatives circling the wagons around Karl Rove, Cheney chief-of-staff Scooter Libby and the Bush White House. In December 2003, Deputy Attorney General James Comey (who later ran afoul of Bush loyalists over the President's illegal NSA domestic surveillance program) described his Plamegate Special Counsel appointee Fitzgerald as "an absolutely apolitical career prosecutor" with a "sterling reputation for integrity and impartiality." But as the noose began to tighten around Libby's neck during Fitzgerald's investigation into the outing of Plame by Robert Novak, the Republican amen corner went after the messenger.

In the fall of 2005, Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison rushed to Libby's defense in the wake of his indictment by Fitzgerald. As the opening salvo of the tried and true "criminalization of politics" defense, Hutchison sneered at what she derided as Fitzgerald's "perjury technicality":

"That if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."

In the ensuing conservative war on Fitzgerald, former MSNBC host Tucker Carlson was among the first goose-stepping soldiers to volunteer. On October 24, 2005, Carlson regretted that the Bush White House hadn't started smearing Fitz much earlier. Carlson applauded Hutchison's line and said of President Bush, "He should have done that a long time ago," adding:

"I think politically [the Bush administration] did very much the wrong thing by saying nice things about Patrick Fitzgerald some months ago - 'he's a man of integrity,' 'he's a good guy,' 'we have complete confidence he's going do the right thing,' etc., etc. - making it now almost impossible for the White House, even on background, to attack the guy."

By February 2007 and with Libby's commutation still months away, Carlson was frothing at the mouth when it came to the topic of Patrick Fitzgerald. Carlson, who once had glowingly approved Ken Starr's inquisition of Bill Clinton, said of Libby's prosecutor:

"You shouldn't have these freelancers, like the lunatic Fitzgerald, running around destroying people's lives for no good reason. I hate this trial."

As it turns out, Tucker Carlson's fury towards Fitz was genetic.

Continue reading »

But not the kind the Republican party was probably hoping for, especially since it doesn't embarrass Democratic candidate Barack Obama, but reveals that Illinois Republican National Committee member Bob Kjellander and Denny Hastert were trying to get Patrick Fitzgerald fired during that U.S. Attorneys shake up, but his work on the Plame investigation protected him.

With the convicted-by-a-jury-of-his-peers Scooter Libby sentenced to 30 months in prison today, we knew that the question of a pardon would come up in tonight's GOP debate. Some of the candidates blew it off, but Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Sam Brownback supported a pardon and completely misrepresented the facts of the case, stating that there was no underlying crime in the outing of Valerie Plame. Obviously, they got Victoria Toensing's talking points before the debate.

It's now proven that Libby's lies and obstruction hindered Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation making it impossible to find the truth behind the leak. Oh, and Tommy Thompson managed to sneak in a "Clinton did it" moment as well...

Download | play Download | play

Kristol finally attacked Patrick Fitzgerald today for his investigation into the Valerie Plame leak. Expect to see this meme start to permeate into the right wing message center since up until now everyone has either praised the way he handled himself and not attacked his motives. I was wondering why it took him so long to go after Fitzgerald in the first place.
Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT (vid-David Edwards)

Kristol: The leak story is absurd, but I now think the whole prosecution is absurd.---I now think it's a politically motivated attempt to wound the Bush administration.---He is now out to discredit the Bush administration.

The investigation was called for by the CIA and he forgets the fact that the CIA told Robert Novak not to print Valerie Plame's name in his column. For Bill, lying to the FBI or a grand jury is perfectly fine. He's just worried that Pat has his eye on Rove and Cheney and that scares old PNAC Bill.

I guess John Gibson will have to take back the medal he gave Karl Rove for outing Valerie Plame.

"Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion....read on"

What say you Tom Maguire?

As Desi says:

"Also to be expected is that they will *still* attempt to argue that she was not covert. I guess what I'm saying is I don't expect this to amount to a hill o' beans in the minds of the defenders of treason."

For anyone to insinuate that it's only Democrats who want Cheney investigated over the Plame leak, there's this:

FDL:

On Fox News Sunday this morning both Jack Reed (D-RI) and George Allen (R-VA) called on Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate whether Dick Cheney had the right to declassify the NIE when he ordered Scooter to flash it to Judy Miller.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT

Said Allen:

I don't think anybody should be releasing classified information, period, whether in the Congress, executive branch or some underling in some bureaucracy.

Jane says the word on the street is that Viveca Novak earned the opportunity to testify before Patrick Fitzgerald because she told her very good buddy Robert Luskin in May, 2004 that his client Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source, and Luskin is now claiming this conversation jogged Rove's memory and caused him to go looking for his now-famous email to Stephen Hadley.

Jeralyn thinks Rove is still trying to squirm his way out of a perjury and/or obstruction charge, which I tend to agree with. However, if this is true, you have to wonder if Ms. Novak bothered to mention this conversation to her bosses and co-workers at Time Magazine up until now. I wonder if she will cover this when she writes up her adventures in her post-testimony story?

FireDogLake: "..So in the spirit of being helpful we offer up a few suggestions for questions it would be nice to have answered in your upcoming piece for Time, which we read will be forthcoming after you tell-all to Patrick Fitzgerald...read on "

TDS on Scooter

You knew it would be the first story of the week and so it is.

Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT (hat tip NorthernFence)

He made fun of Patrick Fitzgerald's baseball analogy. Stewart said Scooter was indicted on one count of not being as smart as Karl Rove.

Stewart: Doesn't anyone over reach anymore?

There was a funny video on Bush running to Air Force One.

Stewart: As long as it's not Watergate. Hurray for the indictment!